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INTERFACES AND US
ii
INTERFACES AND US
User-Experience Design and the Making
of the Computable Subject

Zachary Kaiser
 BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA
29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo

are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain 2023

Copyright © Zachary Kaiser, 2023

Zachary Kaiser has asserted his right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on pp. x–xii constitute

an extension of this copyright page.

Cover design by Daniel Benneworth-Gray

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in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for,
any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in
this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret
any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist,
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­C ONTENTS

List of Figures viii

Acknowledgments x
About the Author xiii

INTRODUCTION 1

Laws of Love 1
The Historical and Conceptual Underpinnings of the Computable
Subjectivity 6
Are We and Our World Nothing but Data? 7
Fragmentation, Prediction, and Identity 7
New Normals and New Morals 8
Is the Computable Subjectivity Actually the Problem? If So,
What Do We Do? 9
Concluding by Way of Beginning 9
The Co-Constitutive Nature of Design, Design Scholarship, and
Design Education 10
Notes 12

1 HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL ROOTS OF THE

COMPUTABLE SUBJECTIVITY 15
Introduction: Disrupting the Insurance Industry—“Convenience”
and “Freedom” 15
Producing and Looping, or, Biopolitics and Biopower 19
The Value of Convenience 22
Freedom and Countercultural Technocracy 24
The Selfish System: Cybernetics and Rational Choice Theory 25
Markets as Information Processors: Cybernetics and Economics 31
The Neoliberal Governmentality 32
Conclusion: Foundations and Ramifications 34
Notes 35
2 DATA=WORLD 39

Introduction: Can You “See” Your Dream Data? 39

Data and World: An Origin Story 45
Computational Instrumentation: Templates and Translations 47
How Computational Instruments Disappear 52
Conclusion: The Great Inversion, or, Operationalism’s Legacy 59
Notes 62

3 PREDICTION AND THE STABILIZATION OF

IDENTITY 65
Introduction: The Scrambling of Algorithmic Anticipation 65
The Digital Production of Fragmentation and Alienation 70
Ontological Insecurity: One Consequence of Fragmentation
and Alienation 74
The Digital Mirror Self: Soothing Ontological Insecurity with
Computation 75
The Role of UX in Producing, then Soothing, Ontological Insecurity 76
Consequences: Soft Biopower and the Proscription of Potential 87
Conclusion: Becoming Cyborgs 88
Notes 89

4 THE MORAL IMPERATIVE OF NORMALITY

THROUGH COMPUTATIONAL OPTIMIZATION 93

Introduction: The Optimized Professor and the Pressures of

Optimization 93
Measurement, Normality, and Morality: Two Origin Stories 99
The Moral Imperative of Self-Optimizing Technologies: The Case of
the Amazon Halo 103
Consequences: Anxiety, Superfluity, and the Instrumentalization of
Interpersonal Interaction 110
Datafied Superfluity: Bullshit Jobs, Bullshit People, and Teaching
from beyond the Grave 111
Conclusion: Fighting for Servitude as if It Were Salvation 120
Notes 121

vi ­CONTENT
5 THE QUESTIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AND
THE ROLE OF DESIGN EDUCATION 127
Introduction 127
Question 1: The Issue of Political Economy and Chile’s Socialist
Cybernetics 128
Question 2: The Role of Design Education in Resisting the “Reality” of
the Computable Subjectivity 133
Conclusion: Returning to Political Economy and the Limits of the Reformist
Approach 145
Notes 147

CONCLUSION: TOWARD A LUDDITE DESIGN

EDUCATION 153
The Politics of UX and the Computable Subject as the Ideal Political
Subject 153
The Lingering Problem: The Computable Subjectivity and Political
Economy 155
The Revolutionary Approach: Luddite Design Education 156
A Provisional Program of Luddite Design Education 162
A Luddite Design Education, Now 164
Notes 164

Bibliography 166
Index 179

­CONTENT vii
­L IST OF FIGURES

2.1 Dr. Pawel Norway’s treatise: Computable Transformations of

Human Qualities to Those of a Visible Dream Memory. Courtesy the
Author 40
2.2 An enlargement of one of the plates from Dr. Norway’s book.
Courtesy the author 40
2.3 A subject viewing their algorithmically generated dream visualization.
Courtesy the author 41
2.4 A subject viewing their algorithmically generated dream visualization.
Courtesy the author 42
2.5 An image of the mobile interface for the Feel® app. © 2022 Feel
Therapeutics Inc., all rights reserved 55
2.6 An image of the mobile interface for the Feel® app. © 2022 Feel
Therapeutics Inc., all rights reserved 57
3.1 The Whisper prototype in a museum exhibition, 2014. Courtesy the
author 66
3.2 An example of Whisper’s output. Courtesy the author 66
3.3 Another example of Whisper’s output. Courtesy the author 67
3.4 Google’s Nest Hub interface. Courtesy Google. © 2021 Google LLC.
All rights reserved 79
3.5 Google’s Nest Hub data integrated with its Google Fit mobile
application. Courtesy Google. © 2021 Google LLC. All rights
reserved 80
3.6 The interface for Ōura’s app, including “readiness” (November 2021).
Courtesy Ōura. © 2021 Ōura Health Oy. All rights reserved 82
3.7 The Ōura website’s hero image as of October 2021. Courtesy Ōura.
© 2021 Ōura Health Oy. All rights reserved 82
3.8 The interface concept for Google’s AI Assistant in the eponymous
patent application, 2021. Image USPTO 83
3.9 One screen from Mindstrong’s patient-facing interface. Courtesy
Mindstrong 86
3.10 Mindstrong user interface for providers. Courtesy Mindstrong 86
4.1 ScholarStat’s Faculty Productivity Index “Ticker,” a device similar to
a stock ticker that would sit outside professors’ offices. Courtesy the
author 94
4.2 A still from a film in which ScholarStat’s faculty-facing interface is
featured. Courtesy the author 95
4.3 An image of the Amazon Halo App interface. Courtesy Amazon
Press Center 108
4.4 A screenshot of the interface to the scholars.msu.edu dashboard.
Courtesy Academic Analytics, © 2005–21, Academic Analytics,
LLC. All Rights Reserved 114
4.5 A screenshot of the interface to the scholars.msu.edu dashboard.
Courtesy Academic Analytics, © 2005–21, Academic Analytics,
LLC. All Rights Reserved 114
4.6 A screenshot from one of the Microsoft MyAnalytics emails that were
sent to me. Courtesy Microsoft 117
4.7 Microsoft Productivity Score administrative UI. Courtesy Microsoft 118
5.1 An image from the Elixir project. Courtesy Lorenza Centi 140
5.2 An image from the Elixir project. Courtesy Lorenza Centi 141
5.3 Christina Dennis’s social credit scoring exhibition prototype and
performance piece. Courtesy Christina Dennis 143
5.4 The prototypical social credit score shown to visitors as part of
Christina’s piece. Courtesy Christina Dennis 144

­LIST OF FIGURE ix
­A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
owe both the pleasure and challenge of writing this book to the people who
have cultivated my two strongest personality traits: intellectual curiosity and a
sense of social responsibility. In this book, as in my personal and professional
life, I have sought to synthesize these qualities. Doing so is not always easy, but
I have benefitted immensely from the support of many people, including those
who I mention below.
I want to first thank my mother, Aviva Kaiser, whose influence on my intellect
and my moral compass is impossible to overstate. Her complete and total support
for my pursuit of any interest no matter how seemingly bizarre or frivolous is
the likely origin of my passion for interdisciplinary research. My father, Robert
J. Kaiser, Jr., is a passionate advocate for justice, and he instilled in me that
same passion along with a willingness to argue for what I believe is right. My
grandfather, Dr. Robert J. Kaiser Sr., who, along with my grandmother, MaryAnn
Kaiser (of blessed memory), taught me how rewarding it is to be a teacher. My wife,
Rabbi Lisa Stella, with whom our daughter Lillian and I share our warm and loving
home, has been a partner in a lifelong journey of learning and inquiry. In 2016,
after seeing one of my talks, she told me that my work was about helping people
see each other, deeply and compassionately, as humans. This observation laid
the foundation for this book, and Lisa’s unyielding support is partly responsible
for this book actually existing somewhere besides my own mind. I also want to
thank my friend—my brother, really, if not by blood then by ideology, politics, and
neurotic predisposition—my partner and collaborator in practically everything,
Dr. Gabi Schaffzin. He has always championed my ideas and my work. Our
children are less than two months apart, and he has been a partner both in my
intellectual journey and in my journey as a parent. Gabi and I have collaborated
frequently with another friend, Sofie Hodara, whose creativity, enthusiasm, and
craftsmanship were central in producing The Dr. Pawel Norway Dream Machine,
a project featured prominently in this book. There are many others without
whose help that project wouldn’t have happened, including Trish Stone at UC San
Diego’s Calit2 and Timothy Belknap and Ryan McCartney at Icebox Projects in
Philadelphia.
 The content of this book is the result of more than ten years of teaching, research,
artistic practice, and professional design practice. It is difficult, therefore, to thank
all the folks who have made contributions along the way, but there are a number
of people who have had a tremendous influence on my work or shaped it in a
significant way, and I want to mention them here. First, Dr. Kathleen Fitzpatrick,
who, amidst her incredibly busy schedule as the Director of Digital Humanities at
Michigan State University, took the time to read my first draft manuscript in its
entirety and offer her feedback. She truly lives out the generosity of scholarship
about which she writes so eloquently. Meanwhile, even before I started writing
this book, my friend and colleague, Dr. Marisa Brandt, had begun introducing
me to many of the texts featured here. She is a brilliant scholar whose reading
recommendations are unparalleled. Throughout my time at MSU, Dr. Karin
Zitzewitz has been a wonderful friend and mentor along my professional academic
journey. She has truly been an inspiration for me as both a scholar and leader. Two
other individuals in my home department at Michigan State—the Department of
Art, Art History, and Design—are crucial to mention here: Rebecca Tegtmeyer
and Ben Van Dyke. Rebecca and Ben have been my go-to support system at work
throughout our time together as colleagues, and I owe a significant portion of my
career to Rebecca, who helped hired me as a junior colleague back in 2014. I would
also be remiss if I did not thank Christopher Long, Dean of the College of Arts and
Letters here at Michigan State. I would not feel emboldened to pursue my various
and often wide-ranging interests if it weren’t for his support and mentorship over
the years. I also want to acknowledge the work of the many students I have had
over the past eight years of teaching at MSU: they have taught me as much, if not
more, than I have taught them, and I am indebted to the enthusiastic participation
of many of them, including some whose work is featured in this book.
Michigan State has been my intellectual home since 2014, but this book has its
origins, at least in part, in a classroom at St. John’s Manhattan Campus, where I
participated in the Design Incubation Writing Fellowship in 2017. I am grateful
to the organizers of that fellowship for their warm reception of my work and their
encouragement to pursue a project that went beyond the article I workshopped
there. I spent some time during this fellowship with Dr. Elizabeth Guffey, whose
work with Dr. Carma Gorman on the journal Design and Culture, has been
an inspiration and offered me an intellectual orientation within “design” that
appreciates its interrelationships with other fields. Carma, meanwhile, I must thank,
for her tireless work advancing our field and in part because she shepherded my
very first academic article to publication. Around the time I attended the Design
Incubation Fellowship, I met with someone whose work makes an appearance a
number of times throughout this text—John Cheney-Lippold. John was one of the
first people to tell me that I was onto something with this book idea, and he read
and offered feedback on the very first version of the proposal for the book, way
back in 2017.

­ACKNOWLEDGMENT xi
 Last, I would like to offer my gratitude to my commissioning editor, Louise
Baird-Smith, who took a chance on this project and helped the book become the
text that I was hoping it could be.
It has been difficult to produce this work during a global pandemic that has
laid bare the massive inequities on which capitalism both thrives and preys. And
it is doubly difficult to proceed with confidence that the work contained in this
book will remain, or be, relevant as the changes wrought by climate change and a
crumbling neoliberalism continue to accelerate. I hope for better days ahead, and
that hope is, to a great degree, the result of my interactions with the individuals
who I have mentioned here.

December 2021

xii ­ACKNOWLEDGMENT
­A BOUT THE AUTHOR

Z
achary Kaiser is Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Experience
Architecture at Michigan State University, USA. His research and creative
practice examine the politics of technology and the role of design in
shaping the parameters of individual, social, and political possibility. His work
has been featured in national and international exhibitions, and his writing, on
topics ranging from the future of the arts in higher education to dream-reading
technologies, appears in both scholarly and popular publications.
xiv
 ­INTRODUCTION

Laws of Love
In the fall of 2015, in a beautifully shot and designed television advertisement,
IBM claimed that they could find and create “algorithms for love.”1 A computer
screen flashes a new line of code and a woman, walking through a European city
at dusk, smiles, pushing away her hair. IBM’s commercial reads like a triumphal
decree of power over any potential disaster or malady. “What does the world know
today,” the commercial begins, not with narration, but with white type, set in
Helvetica, over an aerial shot of a power plant, “that we didn’t know yesterday?”
The music—“This Time Tomorrow,” by the Kinks—increases in volume. Primarily
acoustic, building steam as it increases in volume and tempo, uplifting, energetic,
but not too fast. It’s perfect.

“We know,” the commercial continues, as the typography emerges tastefully

from behind a train set against a picturesque sunset, “how to listen to data …”
CUT to another view of the same train—“… to prevent a derailment.”
CUT to the image of an eye blinking. “We know …”
CUT to an image of a brain scan—“… how to transform healthcare with data.”
CUT to a close-up of a pill—“We know …”
CUT to a medication being bottled—“… how to identify a counterfeit …”
CUT to a young woman walking into a lecture hall—“… and spot a potential
dropout …”—CUT to her sitting in her seat—“… in time to help.”
Rapid cuts build along with the energy of the music: the drums, vocals, and
instrumentation begin to crescendo. “We know how to track epidemics with
phones.”
CUT. “Hear the origins of the universe.”
CUT. “Write algorithms for love.”
CUT. “We know.”
CUT. “how to help predict a crime.”
CUT. “traffic jam.”
CUT. “blackout.”
 CUT. “breakdown.”
CUT. “trend.”
CUT. “harvest.”
Faster cuts. “Wind.”
CUT. “Cyberattack.”
Extremely fast cuts. “Injury.”
“Delay.”
“Smog.”
“Clog.”
“Leak.”
“Wildfire.”
“Drought.”
“Storm.”
“Pattern.”
“Swarm.”
“Strike.”
“Surge.”
And finally … “In time to act.”
The shot holds on an emergency worker in the rain.
CUT to a small child with a laptop in what is presumably a “developing nation.”
From the right edge of the frame, the text, still in white, still in Helvetica, enters
the frame.
“Once we know, we can’t unknow.”

***

Back in 1862, however—before big data, before IBM’s Watson, before The Kinks,
and before Helvetica—Wilhelm Wundt seemed to have beaten IBM to the punch.
Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology, declared that “statisticians had
demonstrated that there are laws of love just as for all other human phenomena.”2
Wundt was the man who helped psychology depart from philosophy. He advocated
for psychology to take on an experimental, empirical, and epistemological approach
that mimicked the natural sciences. Wundt thought that “at least in humans
experimentation could reveal law-like regularities of inner (psychological) reality.”3
He developed a “physiological psychology” that sought to, in a laboratory setting,
control the physical conditions of experiments in order to repeatedly elicit, and
where possible, measure the internal psychological phenomena of a subject. But
Wundt thought of this “physiological psychology” as a kind of subset of a broader
discipline of psychology that was inclusive of concepts such as culture, history, and
morality. In part because of the limited scope of translations and limited access to
his texts, his ideas about physiological psychology—experimental psychology—
reached prominence and were interpreted as an articulation of the discipline of
psychology itself and not as part of an expansive idea of psychology.4
One of Wundt’s innovations was the idea of the unfortunately named
“psychophysical parallelism.” Basically, he argued, all psychological phenomena

2 INTERFACES AND US
had corresponding physical phenomena, and the two were irreducible. The idea
was that psychologists studied the psychological aspect of consciousness, while
others, such as neurophysiologists, studied the physiological aspect, but they were
really studying the same subject, just from different perspectives. “[E]xperience
dealt with in the natural sciences and in psychology are nothing but components
of one experience regarded from different points of view: in the natural sciences as
an interconnection of objective phenomena and, in consequence of the abstraction
from the knowing subject, as mediate experience; in psychology as immediate and
underived experience.”5
By the 1890s, however, Wundt felt forced to argue that psychology itself was not
a natural science, meaning that it was irreducible to biology or the nervous system
of a subject. It was, instead, the study of the apprehension of experience, which
was partly physiological but not wholly. At the same time, he argued, psychology
employed the methods of the natural sciences: experimentation and observation.
Wundt claimed that “physical measurement deals with quantitative values” while
“[p]sychical measurement on the other hand, deals in the last instance in every
case with qualitative values.”6 Yet, throughout his work, he continually refers to
psychological “facts.” This indicates what Wundt saw as the ultimate purpose of
psychology: the discovery (through empirical practice and experimentation) of
generalizable laws that “govern mental life.”7 Furthermore, Wundt sought laws
that would be, to a great degree, universal and apply even to the mental life of
animals.
Wundt’s inspiration to find generalizable laws that would determine “the logical
form of all mental phenomena” emerged from his immersion in an intellectual
milieu that was dominated by the early days of statistics. His early work suggested
that “statistics could offer to psychology, through the apprehension of a large
number of facts, rich material for analysis that would bring, rather than vague
assumptions, conclusions of mathematical certainty.” Drawing on the work of
the founder of statistics as a discipline, Adolphe Quetelet, via Thomas Buckle,
Wundt felt able to declare: “Everywhere, where the material for the observations is
sufficient, the law of large numbers imposes itself—i.e., isolated deviations, which
we ascribe to chance or individual will, cancel each other out, and the historical
and natural law finds its clear and complete expression.”8 The kind of psychology
best suited to the use of statistics he called “social psychology,” meaning the
psychology not of individuals, but of large groups of people. At the same time,
however, Wundt saw statistics as inherently limited. While able to reveal some kind
of universal laws about human behavior, they functioned to demonstrate “causes”
and not “motives.” In other words, statistics were explanatory, not predictive.
What changed between Wundt’s declaration in 1862 that there are laws of love,
just as there are for all other human phenomena, and IBM’s claim that it can write
algorithms for love? And what actually is the difference between these two claims?
And what, you might legitimately ask here, is the point of talking about this in a
book about design?

­INTRODUCTIO 3
 I would like to begin by answering the last question first. What exactly do
Wilhelm Wundt and IBM’s self-aggrandizing claims about its technologies have
to do with a book that is about user-experience design? The answer lies in how
seriously we take IBM’s claim to knowledge. I am inclined to look at IBM’s claim
that “once we know, we can’t unknow” from a slightly different perspective. What I
want to find out is how do we know? If we take this truism at face value, that “once
we know, we can’t unknow,” I think it is important to figure out how that knowing
takes place to begin with. And I think the moment of “once we know” happens at
the interface.
All of IBM’s technologies have interfaces that go along with them—ranging
from their suites of big data analytics for businesses9 to their various adaptations
of the Watson platform for healthcare.10 It is only at the moment of interaction
with the interface that users are made to believe the claims that IBM makes in
their commercials. In other words, it is only when the interface shows predictions
from a predictive model making their way into reality, when their appearance is
scientific, and when the inputs displayed on the screen appear to be “data.”
Central to this book is the idea that we encounter, at the interface, the knowing
to which the IBM commercial refers. Again, however, more questions might arise
from such an assertion. For example, where do the claims made by IBM (or other
companies that work in predictive analytics, such as Google or Facebook), which
its interfaces subsequently confirm, originate? And, furthermore, what are the
implications of accepting that which we gather from the interface as the kind of
knowing that IBM claims it is? And what happens when what we know is wrong
but we can’t unknow it?
The interface is more than an object or a thing. It is a moment in time where
the histories, ideas, and assumptions underlying a particular technology meet the
user’s ideas about themselves and about others. In doing so, the interface helps
produce new ideas about people, and therefore also has certain implications for
how they conduct themselves in the world, how they imagine society, and how
they treat each other. The way individuals treat each other, and the way they
feel they are supposed to or able to treat each other—far from being about some
sort of “across the aisle” political discourse or the nuances of appropriate emoji
selection—indicates and has implications for how people embody the world they
want to (or don’t want to) live in. It is, in many ways, the source of an ethical
imagination that shapes everyday life in ways that are barely perceptible. To
a great degree, the design of digital products establishes the contours of one’s
understanding of oneself and, therefore, of others. Perhaps you woke up in the
morning, glanced at your Amazon Halo or Ōura ring interface to see “how well”
you slept or whether you are “ready” for the day, or examined “insights” about
your collaborative projects with the help of Microsoft’s Viva or MyAnalytics. This
is one of the concerns at the core of this book: that the interface is the meeting
point between a user and a version of the user which is produced not only through
technology but through a collection of histories, ideas, and assumptions—all of

4 INTERFACES AND US
which are barely perceptible to the user. To think through this concern in some
more detail, we will follow the line of questioning about Wundt and IBM that I
began earlier, and, along the way, we will encounter the other concerns at the heart
of this book.
What is the difference between Wundt’s claim there are laws of love just as for
all other human phenomena, and IBM’s claim that it can write algorithms for love?
To begin with, Wundt saw a difference between what he called social psychology
and individual psychology. Social psychology was about the psychology of large
populations and included things like divorce or suicide rates across a society. To
be able to understand some general “laws” about love that explained certain social
phenomena within society, such as divorce rates, seems to be within the bounds of
Wundt’s social psychology. This is precisely the kind of situation in which he argued
statistics could be useful for augmenting the psychologist’s toolbox of observational
techniques. But IBM, at least given the combination of imagery and text within the
context of the commercial, seems to suggest that in writing algorithms for love,
it can predict love not only for society but for individuals. IBM’s claim might be
based on the difference between the statistics of Wundt’s time and its data-driven
analytics. Contributing to IBM’s claim might also be the ability to dynamically
categorize individuals to create unique profiles that can be situated in comparison
with other individuals and categories of individuals, in real time.
To be able to predict something based on a model, however, no matter how
granular the model, requires that the behavior of the individuals being modeled
and predicted adhere to the model. The better they adhere to the model, the more
accurate the predictions. The interface is what makes users believe the utility of
the model and makes the predictions convincing. It produces, legitimizes, and
circulates an idea about the self that people then come to adopt. This idea about
the self is what this book seeks to examine, and is what I call the computable
subjectivity: when an individual believes they are both computing—meaning they
operate according to computational processes—and computable—meaning they
can be entirely understood by computers, and no part of them escapes this.
Interfaces and Us, then, seeks to describe the computable subjectivity, examine
its history and consequences, and detail the role of user-experience design in its
adoption and reproduction. The computable subjectivity, I will argue, has three
key characteristics that underpin its development and proliferation, and it is these
characteristics and the role of UX in their propagation that form the three chapters
in the middle of this book: (1) the ideological commitment to the equivalence
of “data” and “world”; (2) the aspiration to be both legible to, and predictable
by, computers—an aspiration which soothes the feeling of fragmentation that
accompanies an adherence to the belief that data and world are one in the same;
and, (3) the adoption of a morality that is based on becoming normal through
computational self-optimization.
Before we consider how users meet this idea about themselves at the interface
however, the first question I posed above must be addressed. What changed

­INTRODUCTIO 5
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
rebuilding, but there are only walls left. Ham wasn’t shot up, but
burned. While at Bus my permission came through and I left the
bunch not knowing where I would find them when I came back.

Port-à-Binson was where I found them. No doubt you read how

the Germans tried to get into Épernay on account of its being a
centre for supplies. Port-à-Binson is not far from Épernay, lying on
the bank of the river Marne. Here it was I took up the duties of clerk
—something I’ll always remember.
When we moved again it was to Jonchery, between Fismes and
Rheims. While in the Field Service I had often gone through Fismes;
you wouldn’t know it now, ruins is no name for it. From there we
rolled on to Malmaison. Here we got the news that the armistice had
been signed. Since leaving that town, we have stopped over night in a
few other villages until we struck here.

This account is more or less a bunch of names. I haven’t said much

about the work, which has been carrying shells most of the time. Nor
have I given much dope on some of the excitement that we have
seen. Believe me, we have had a little excitement in the way of
bombs, and once in a while, shells.
I wrote about the Boche and their camouflaged plans. That took
place at Chézy aux Orxois between Chateau-Thierry and Mareuil sur
Ourcq. On that day we were carrying shells and my car being the last
had the fusees. You can see that underneath my car was no place at
all to use as an abris.
I’m enclosing a bit of German propaganda, some of the bunk that
they used to drop from planes. They certainly must have been in a
pipe dream if they expected any one to fall for that stuff. Their minds
work in a queer way.

One of the men who used to work in the atelier when we had
French workmen, came in to see us the other day. He had just got
back from his permission and from seeing his wife and son who had
been prisoners. The Huns had cut the forefinger from each of his
wife’s hands. That was mild compared with some of the other things
that they did.
The other night we staged a party. The result is my drawing of
Monsieur Light Wine. Never again.
Rumors are flying about. The latest is that all men will return to
their original companies. That’s all right, but what becomes of the
Field Service men? If it’s all the same to those higher up, I’ll take
home.

December 19

Dear Mother—
 Winter has at last taken the padlock off. The rain that has been
falling for the last few days, has now turned to snow and the
temperature has moved from its suite half way up to one near the
ground floor. Rubber boots and an over coat are very much in style
these days—also a red nose.
We are now taking the count in the village of Boulzicourt near the
cities of Mézières and Charleville. Sedan is also quite close by. The
day before yesterday I took a trip to Charleville: object, a bath.
Managed to catch a ride on a truck going over.

After the bath, met a couple of the boys and we hustled around to
get things fixed up for supper. None of the cafés or restaurants have
started in to serve meals so we went into the market and got some
steak and potatoes. The prices are sky high, but one has to eat. These
we took around to a small café and had them cooked up. The steak
was tough, but the “cuisinier” had cooked it in a most delicious way
— with Pinard. The potatoes as usual were French Fried. We had
brought along our own wine or we would have been out of luck.
After supper we drifted around to a dance hall. It was crowded,
about ten men to one girl, so we didn’t try our luck at the French
dancing. All they do is whirl—always in one way and they never
reverse. Once in awhile you see someone trying to do the old turkey
trot. After sticking around a short while, we started home. No ride
this time—no luck at all, so we burnt up the road for the ten kilom’s.
 Yesterday I was over to Sedan. It was raining so hard that I didn’t
do much chasing around. Of the two cities Charleville is the more
picturesque with its long sloping roofs and its quaint old fashioned
French appearance. Sedan looks more modern, more like the States.
The day we moved, five of us got left behind. That is there wasn’t
enough room in the remaining camion—the others had pulled out
and we thought they were waiting somewhere down the line. The
first stop we knew was to be at Boulzicourt, so we started out on foot.
All of us were dressed pretty warmly, as we had expected to hold
down the front end of a camion. It was raining and soon our
overcoats were weighing close to a ton. Up the line about three miles,
I discovered that two letters for one of the boys had been forgotten in
the shuffle. It was up to me to go back and one of the boys said he’d
come along. Back we went and rescued the mail. We got under way
again and this time had the luck to jump an ambulance that was
going straight through. It was going, it didn’t even hit the high spots.
About half way we passed the other three birds riding the back end of
a truck. We pulled into Boulzicourt and discovered that the camion
had moved on to a place called Flize, which is on the way to Sedan.
 A camion came bowling along so we hopped aboard. Of course it
was going to the wrong village, but we didn’t worry—one can always
catch a ride. At Mézières the truck pulled up and we jumped off. It
was still raining and we weren’t what you would call dry. Hungry and
not a thing could be had in the way of food. Nothing in the shops, but
we did manage to get coffee. Along towards night, we ran into a
Frenchman that set us up to one fine supper with wine and rum.
About that time we decided we might as well be setting out for the
camp. It was raining great guns and was so dark that we gave it up as
a bad job. Instead we got a room over a café. The woman who ran the
place came over on the ark. She had remained during the years that
the Boche held the town, and, as a consequence kept running in
German with her French—something that happens quite frequently
in these parts. Our room was a wonder. The bed boasted seven
mattresses; reminded me of the fairy story of how to tell a real
princess—when a bunch of Janes claimed the crown and to test them
out they put them to bed on a stack of mattresses. Underneath was a
pea. The fake ones slept like a log, but she of the purple couldn’t
sleep at all and, in the morning, she was black and blue from the
lump raised by the pea. We either are not of the purple or there was
nothing under the mattresses, for we certainly tore off the sleep. Just
before we turned in there was an awful banging on Madame’s door,
and yells in French, German, and Sanscrit I guess. She had locked
herself in. We went out and discovered the key sticking into the lock
of her door. We gave it a turn, but the door stayed shut. We gave it a
couple of more turns, and tried other combinations—still the door
refused to open. In the meantime the old girl was yelling “nicht’s”
and “ja’s” and French cuss words. We expected the whole town to
show up. Finally Bill had the brilliant idea of seeing how our door
worked. We went over to try it out and in fooling with it the door
knob came out in my hand. I went over, stuck it into Madame’s door
and “Voilà” the caged bird was free. In the morning we set out for
Flize.
 It was still raining and we didn’t get a ride. We walked and walked
and no sign of camp. My coat was soaked through, my rubber boots
were raising the devil with my feet, and my labors had given me a
turkish bath. We pulled into Flize, with nothing like a camp in sight.
While we were deciding whether to wait around for a ride to Sedan,
where the Mission was, or to look for quarters, one of our trucks
came panting along. The camp was at Boulzicourt. They had come
over near Flize, had stayed two hours, and had gone to Boulzicourt. A
staff car came flying along, we got a ride and here we are.
This town is quite large. Our quarters are very comfortable. We are
billeted in a French house. Four of us have a front room, and if the
sun ever comes out, we should get our share of it. Our fireplace is
working all the time and we are kept busy getting wood to keep the
home fire burning.
 Madame had us in for coffee the other afternoon. She was here
while the Huns held the town. Naturally she has no love for them.
What they couldn’t steal they took, and she’s just about left high and
dry. Her son was captured at Verdun, but is now home.
The town hasn’t come back to life yet. When it does there are
enough cafés to feed and drink us all. Two dance halls with these
player pianos are open. Ten centimes sets the music going. They have
a total of nine tunes among which is the Merry Widow—you can see
how up to date the music is. At nights these places are crowded with
the French troops and Italian road workers. All told I’ve seen three
girls, all at once, in these places.
 Yesterday my Christmas box showed up. The cigarettes came at
the right moment, as for three days I’d been using a corn cob. The
“Y” had run out of smokes, and they hardly ever visit us nowadays.
The knife was a wonder—too good to use.
The other day some of our trucks hauled champagne. They came
through here and stopped for supper, and then went on. They left a
few cases behind, so water isn’t very popular just now.
There is a chance of our getting back inside of a year—just a
chance. Hate to think of another winter over here. Guess by the time
I get back there won’t be anything going on in the states, the war will
be a dead issue then.
 December 26

Dear Mother—

Of course we had a big feed. The army didn’t come across with any
extras, but by scouring the country for miles around our company,
and all the companies for that matter, had some meal served up.
Here’s our line up—celery soup, roast beef, mashed potatoes,
macaroni with cheese and tomatoes, a salad, cake, prune pie, celery,
and cocoa. Besides the Red Cross sent cigarettes, candy, and
crackers.
 In the afternoon we took a ride by camion to Sedan where the “Y”
was putting on some kind of a show for us. After much cheering, and
not missing a single bump we arrived and found that the show was
going on—movies were being run off—French movies, a nice long
drawn out thing in six or seven parts on Nero, his love affairs, his
fiddle, and Rome. I for one wasn’t at all mad when they cut the
picture short and started in on some live stuff. After a Lieutenant got
a couple of stories off his chest, the ball started. Some real American
coons from a near by outfit were the live stuff. They sang by fours,
threes, and twos, and when they got tired of that they gave us some A
No. 1 clog dancing. Believe me! they could sure shuffle their feet. The
“Y” had decked them out in some paper caps which added to the
hilarity. They were the whole show and it was worth the trip to see
them.
The “Y” also were there with the Christmas tree. We rang the bell
for chocolate, cigarettes, a cigar, and cookies.
 The other day I went over to Charleville again. Ran into a place
that had real pies—chocolate and apple. Also had cakes. The prices
were near the top, but we bought a few notwithstanding. The girl
behind the counter could have sold us ice at the North Pole—she was
a peach. Two of us told the boys to break away and we would show
them something better—and we did. There was a girl in a small café
that we had discovered on our last trip. We took the boys along in
and they agreed that she was the class. Here we ate the pies and
cakes and the girl behind the bar came in for a share. It was a good
thing that we were riding in the Ford and not walking, or we would
never have got back to camp. Those pies went fine but we ate more
than our share I’m afraid.
Last night and today it snowed again—just enough for snow balls.
This afternoon we were throwing them with the French kids. They
can peg them as well as our boys, but I guess they forget how to use
their wing when they get older.
 There are two kids that drop into the office three times a day for
their cigarette allowance. The oldest is sixteen and the youngest
thirteen. I made the mistake of giving them one the first day and they
now take it as a matter of course. Guess I’ll start them to work
sweeping out the place on their next visit. That may break them of
the habit—like offering a tramp work when he asks for food.
I don’t know if it will work, however, as there are a couple who
hang out at our kitchen. They lug all the water, and do all the odd
jobs. They are a great help to the K. P.’s—in fact our kitchen police,
since these kids came along, live the life of Riley and as for the kids,
they eat to their hearts’ content.
 Saw Les. Herrick yesterday. He’s looking fine. We went over the
feed we had last Christmas night—it was a wonder. One of the boys
reminded me that last Christmas eve we were pulled out of bed
eleven times on account of air raids. The Boche did their best to put
one over on us, but we fooled them. I’ll never forget those raids. First
you would hear the guns barking in the distance. Then the bark
would get nearer and nearer. Next the twins would let out their war
cry. Finally the Lieut. would stick his head in the door with the
words, “I want every man to go to the abri at once.” Then would be
the hunt in the dark for shoes, tin derby, gas mask, and coat. Then a
few bombs. Then the dash for the abri. Then the standing around
wondering how long it was going to last. Then another bark from the
twins. Then a few more bombs. Then the dying away buzz of the
planes. Then the grand return, only to do it all over again a few
minutes later. It was a great life. The Field Service sent a wallet to us
for a Christmas present. On the inside there is printed in gold letters
“Dernier Noël de la Guerre en France.” Translated literally that
means, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Understand that
they were also going to give us some kind of a medal but they weren’t
finished in time and that later on they will come through.

So another Christmas came and another Christmas passed in

France. It was a pretty good Christmas at that, but if it’s all the same
to all those concerned I’ll take my next at home.
 January 6, 1919.

Dear Mother:

We have slid into the New Year almost without knowing it. We did,
however, have a small celebration New Year’s Eve; but as there was
no ringing of bells or tooting of horns at midnight, we had nothing to
remind us just what this party was all about.
The night before last the French troops in town put on a show.
Stage, scenery, and orchestra were very much there, even a spotlight.
The acts were mostly singing ones; sad songs, glad songs, and every
old kind of a song were dished up. There were also a couple of
monologues thrown in for good luck. They talked so fast that I wasn’t
able to get what they were all about, but from the laughs and cheers
they must have been not only good but spicy. To wind things up,
there was a one-act play. There were two women parts, both taken by
French soldiers. They were right there with the looks and form
divine. I was able to follow the play and as they say at home, it was
rather broad.
 Today was qualification card day. An officer sits at a table with a
card, that has more questions on it than a questionnaire and shoots
question after question at you. You are asked everything, from who
your favorite actress is to how old is Ann. One question was, “What
branch of the service would you choose, if you had to do it all over
again?” Guess everyone answered that question the same: “Anything
but this.” After all was said and done, it was still a question of when
we would get home.